Naples’ National Archeological Museum is hosting the show The Borgia Collection, which previously appeared at Velletri’s Palazzo Comunale; the show takes its name from Cardinal Stefano Borgia (1731-1804), a collector who sought to imitate his fellow-Roman, Caesar Octavian Augustus, who “with things most precious for their antiquity and rarity adorned his residences.,” turning the Palazzo Borgia in Velletri - the first stop on the Grand Tour from Rome to Naples - into a museum-home in the 18th century; in fact this was unique in 18th century Europe, with Egyptian, Greek, Volscian Etruscan, Roman, Arab, and Indian antiques, Medieval paintings and liturgical objects, geographical curiosities, as well as extraordinary artifacts from the New World sent to Borgia by the Catholic missions. Stefano Borgia was a member of the Borgia family of Velletri, who were related to the Valenza dynasty of Pope Alexander VI; their presence in Velletri is attested to as early as the 12th century. The collection originated in the 17th century with Clemente Erminio Borgia (1640-1711), who collected in his city palazzo the antiquities of the surrounding area. Alessandro Borgia (1682-1764), archbishop of Fermo, inherited the collection from Clemente Erminio and graced it with a fine collection of medals. Starting from this core collection, Stefano Borgia put together his famous museum, thanks to his appointment as Secretary of Propagation of the Faith (the key body in the Church’s missionary policy), and from 1770 on he solicited various materials and objects from countries that were then outside the normal channels of supply for collectors. This collection of treasures and curiosities “gathered from every part of the world,” as we read in the dedication inscribed on the entrance to his country house, soon became very well known in Europe, admired by Goethe in his 1787 Voyage to Italy, thus making it a mandatory stop for scholars and wealthy tourists on any voyage de Naples. Ten years after the death of Stefano Borgia, his nephew Camillo (1773-1817), a Jacobin and soldier in the service of many different flags, proposed to sell the collection in 1814 to Gioacchino Murat in Naples, thus ceding that universal museum, that world in a house, that his cardinal uncle would never have sold to anyone for any reason. Stefano Borgia in fact died out of Italy, in Lyon in 1804, traveling with Pope Pius VII, who was on his way to attend the coronation of Napoleon in Paris. Today the collection has been brought together again for the first time since its dispersal, with about 400 pieces, some of them never seen before, encompassing both the Old and the New Worlds and the Orient with geographical curiosities and rarities - for collecting at that time - such as a Lapp drum, an Indian altar, and a Chinese scroll depicting the Great Wall. There is the rare series of codices in various languages, like the Etruscan alphabet, which was enough to get Borgia elected as Lucumo in the Etruscan Academy of Cortona. Medieval paintings, objects in gold, ivory and glass, give an impression of the sacred museum, historic testimony to Christianity, a real treasure, as is the Renaissance missal of Pope Alexander VI Borgia, from the Vatican Library, perhaps purchased by the Cardinal to mark his self-celebratory identification with the Borgias of Valenza. This predilection for the “curious” came to the cardinal in the wake of the great French scholar Caylus, for his attention to the everyday, to toys, household utensils, and later Christian archeology, the discovery of the Medieval through analysis of sources thanks to the lesson of the Masons, a reconsideration of the esthetics of Medieval art influenced by Seroux d’Agincourt, an attention to the rituals and myths of other religions, studied so as to better conduct missionary work, and even the vast wealth of the natural world gathered together in the Nature Cabinet. Observing the Greek antiquities more closely, we discover an exquisite Ionic funerary stele, Man with Dog (48 B.C.), a Galeate Minerva in bronze; a bas-relief with reclining figure from the island of Milo (1st century B.C.). Among the Roman antiquities, viewed in light of the correspondence Stefano Borgia maintained with the period’s top antiquarians (L. Lanzi, E.Q. Visconti, G. Marini): a bas-relief showing Hercules’ labors, a gold wild goat from Edessa (4th century B.C.), a marble bas-relief with dromedary; a significant number of inscriptions from the Velletri area; a precious medal collection with rare series of Alexandrian imperial, Longobard and Arab-Kufic coins. There are some rare portraits of illustrious figures on the Renaissance model, including some scholars famous in the history of Velletri (Mancinelli, Theoli, Antonelli). The Egyptian section includes 24 pieces, some of noteworthy dimensions, like the funeral monument of Imen-em-Inet (XIX dynasty). This is one of the most beautiful collections to be found in Europe, and now it is finally on display in Naples; it is an opportunity to experience the dream that Cardinal Stefano Borgia saw in it: to be a polyphony of the four voices of the world, a prophetic vision of our multicultural society. (traduzione Interpres sas- Giussano)